The Michigan Tea Party Scorecard is endorsed by these fine groups

North Oakland Tea Party Patriots

Core Principles

Retake Our Government

This website is a public service of Independents for Responsible Government of Clarkston Michigan.
Visit our other websites at:

www.I4RG.com - main website

WatchingCongress

Michigan Legislature Notables - Winners and Losers in Lansing
Bills, votes, representatives and senators that deserve attention

2012 Major Accomplishments were impressive and can be reviewed the 2012 summary page, along with some actions and individuals who earned some well deserved criticism.

2013 is a new year with a new session and the legislator scores restart at zero. Due to the small number of in- scope votes during the first quarter, the scorecard will not be updated until the end of the second quarter. Some of the key issues and votes that we will be tracking and scoring are noted below.

We continue our focus on fiscal responsiblity, smaller government and private sector job growth. Within those broad goals we will be tracking legislation dealing with Obamacare implementation, corporate welfare, education, and maintaining Freedom to Work. Of course reducing wasteful spending of any type to minimize the tax burden on all taxpayers is always being tracked.

Health care improvements unfortunately often means finding the least harmful choice among those imposed by the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). The two major choices concern the state health care exchange and the expansion of Medicaid. Both have the potential of significantly increasing costs while doing little or nothing to actually improve health care services in Michigan. We have little opportunity to impact the exchange, but have much more control over the Medicaid expansion. We strongly support:

• avoiding the costs and responsibility for the insurance exchange - default to the federal version
• expanding services to lower income residents more effectively than the federal Medicaid expansion

Highway improvements are a goal we strongly support, but only after a thorough search for existing sources of funding and redirecting funds for less important purposes to the highway improvement project. We are confident that the highway funding can be achieved with no new taxes. Two questions to legislators:

• Will you commit to funding this important goal with no net tax increases?
• Are you willing to reprioritize and reallocate existing funds to this higher priority goal?
  

Corporate Welfare is a great place to look for funds to reallocate. This long standing practice of passing out taxpayer money to politically favored corporations can and should be stopped. Good highways are actually something public funds should be used for. Sports stadiums, gifts to movie studios, and gifts to battery companies are not. No representative can honestly claim that new taxes are needed for basic services such as highways while supporting millions in gifts to politically favored companies and industries.

House Bill 4328 – state budget
Amendment offered by Rep. Patrick Somerville (R), to eliminate $25 million proposed for state film subsidies, and also to cut the amount appropriated for targeted corporate subsidies by $25 million, leaving $66.9 million in the budget for this purpose. The $50 million saved would instead be transferred to road funding. Also, to earmark any unspent appropriations at the end of the year to road projects, up to a maximum of $150 million. The amendment passed by voice vote in the House on April 23, 2013. (4/28/13)

Thumbs down to Rep. Vicki Barnett, D-Farmington, who tried to put back the $25 million for film subsidies, and raise it to $50 million. Also to Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, who vowed “a full resurrection” to the Detroit Free Press. (4/28/13)


SB123 and all those who voted for yet another handout of public funds to private companies. If a sports team wants a new stadium, the sports team should pay for it.

To Sen. Mike Kowall for sponsoring SB269 that attempts to make permanent the $75M funding for Jennifer Granholm's invention called the 21st Century Job Fund - which is another term for passing out taxpayer dollars to politically favored corporations

Education is vitally important to all individuals in Michigan, and improving education for those currently trapped in underperforming schools is especially important. There are many improvements that can be made without increasing funding, and many opportunities to ensure current funding is spent more wisely.

• controlling the unsustainable costs of union retirement and insurance benefits
  
• expanding school choice

Maintaining the postive momentum of Freedom to Work will attract new industry and create new jobs and every effort must be made to ensure this historic step continues.

The scorecard will be updated quarterly, beginning with the 2nd quarter of 2013 once there are enough in-scope votes of consequence to score. This page is updated as especially good -or bad- actions on key issues require special attention.

Michigan Tea Party Scorecard
A public service of Independents for Responsible Government of Clarkston, MI www.I4RG.com

2012 4th quarter update posted 1/21/13
This completes the scorecard for the last two years of legislation. A new scorecard will start at the end of June, 2013

Since there were so few votes during the first quarter that will be scored and most of them were relatively minor, we will not publish a scorecard until the end of the 2nd quarter.

Click here to view the scorecard

View Corporate Welfare Focus Scorecard

Click here for information about using the scorecard and the scorecard process

The Michigan Tea Party Scorecard is not the typical legislative scorecard. The intent is to differentiate among legislators on the core issues of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and private sector job growth. To that end, we only include votes that are relevant to those issues, and exclude most straight party line votes.

The interactive scorecard was developed by I4RG using tools and data available at the Mackinac Center MichiganVotes site. It is updated quarterly. For comments or questions, contact scorecard@I4RG.com

Special focus scorecard on corporate welfare

While Tom Mcmillin and Dave Agema scored 91%, the overwhelming majorities in both houses scored very poorly. 84% of the senate and 87% of the house scored below 30% click here to view this special focus subset of the Michigan Responsible Government Scorecard

Scorecard Highlights

Results from release 5, published 1/20/2013, covering all of 2011 and 2012

• In the House, Rep Tom McMillin has the highest score at 93%, with Dave Agema at 92%.Three others are at 80% or better.
  
  
• The lowest scoring House Republican was Ed McBroom at 51%
  
  
• House Democrats ranged from Tim Melton at 48% down to Steven Lindberg at 11%.
  
  
• In the Senate, Joe Hune tops the list at 76%; with fellow Republicans Jack Brandenburg, Patrick Colbeck and Dave Robertson all above 70%
  
  
• The lowest scoring Republican is Sen. Rick Jones at 46%, followed by Tom Casperson and Mike Nofs at less than 50%
  
  
• Senate Democrats ranged from 18% to 13%
  
  Take a look at the scorecard to see how well your local politicians are supporting fiscal responsibility. private sector job growth, and smaller, less intrusive government... Click here to view the scorecard.